


The Kingdom of Heaven

by Vinelle



Category: Life and Death - Stephenie Meyer, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Christian Character, Daddy Issues, Dismemberment, F/M, Genderbent Carlisle, Murder, Period-Typical Sexism, Religious Content, Religious Fanaticism, Vampire Hunters, Violence, Volturi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25630789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinelle/pseuds/Vinelle
Summary: In one world, after Carlisle Cullen was turned into a vampire he became a doctor and a pacifist unlike anything the vampire world had seen before. In another, Carine Cullen makes her father a promise, and it’s a promise she’ll do anything to keep.
Relationships: Carine Cullen & Aro, Carlisle Cullen/Jasper Hale, Jasper Hale/Carine Cullen
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Carnivorous_Muffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/gifts).



> Written as part of a quid-pro-quo bargain with The Carnivorous Muffin. May she enjoy my humble offering.
> 
> This fic was first conceived because Carlisle is one of the many Twilight characters that just can't be genderbent. He can forget about being a doctor in the 19th and early 20th century, for one thing. I should also think that Carine would have stayed with the Volturi a lot longer than Carlisle did, because they'd offer her this pocket society where she was treated as equal to men. She'd have a very different experience, and a hard time turning her back on that. I digress. 
> 
> My point here is that genderbend Carlisle, and suddenly you've got a completely different story. The Carine Cullen of Life and Death just didn't convince me, so here's my version instead.

_She look'd down to Camelot._

_Out flew the web and floated wide;_

_The mirror crack'd from side to side;_

_"The curse is come upon me," cried_

_The Lady of Shalott._

\- The Lady of Shalott (1942), by Lord Alfred Tennyson

___

The streets of London were cold that night, the chill wrapping around his body in an icy embrace. Pastor Cullen was walking faster than could be considered dignified, almost running in his eagerness to get inside. Luckily there was no one around to see him at such a late hour.

He drew his coat closer around him as he jogged around the last corner, glad to finally be home. 

It had been a frightful night.

A whole nest of vampires had been uncovered in the very heart of London, and after a week of careful planning, he and twenty-something men from the parish had gone out to find them, intent on smoking the creatures out of their hive. Unfortunately the creatures had escaped, seemingly effortlessly.

Normal demons, the ones who played at being human, were easy enough to catch and burn. These ones had been different. It shouldn’t have been possible, leaping out through the roof and away into the night the way he’d seen them do. He’d never seen anything like it in all his years as a demon hunter.

He fully intended to track down their new hiding place, but it worried him that these kinds of vampires might be harder to catch than the ones he was used to.

The door to his home swung open, and he was met by his daughter’s pale, tired face. It seemed she’d waited up for him.

«Father,» Carine whispered. «I was so worried!»

She threw her arms around her father as soon as he’d closed the door behind him, and held on tightly. He laid a hand at her head, and smiled warmly down at his daughter.

«There, there, child,» he muttered fondly, gently stroking her hair.

She squeezed a little harder before she released him, and looked up at him, eyes filled with care and concern. «It scares me that you go out like this,» she told him.

«Be at ease, my dear. I’m fine,» he reassured her warmly, and stepped back from her. He hung up his jacket and hat as she watched. «Since you’re up, would you go and find me something to eat?»

Carine nodded and smiled at him. «Of course, father,» she said, and swept from the room.

She didn’t ask about what had happened, but they both knew he wouldn’t have answered her if she had.

She knew that he’d been out hunting for creatures of the night, that much he couldn’t hide from her. She knew none of the details, though. Pastor Cullen didn’t want his young daughter’s thoughts to be filled with such dark, ugly things, and he went out of his way to shield her from that kind of sordid knowledge.

Carine Cullen was a singularly obedient and devout young woman. She didn’t waste her time on frivolous activities with youth her age, preferring to spend her days tending to the poor and the sick in her father’s parish. She was always home by nightfall, and happily read to her father at night if he wasn’t too busy.

The whole parish loved her, and none more than her doting old father.

And so, when he saw her blue eyes turn sorrowful as his persecutions of evil led him to discover another creature of the night, or when she would sometimes ask ever-so-carefully if burning them alive truly was the best way to dispose of witches and demons, he sent thanks to the Lord that she remained so innocent of the depravities those creatures were capable of.

Smiling to himself, Cullen sat down by the cold fireplace and waited for his daughter to return with his meal.

A sudden chill in the room made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Hadn’t he closed the door?

He turned to look at the door, but it was closed. He frowned in confusion. 

«I wasn’t sure what to do with you.» A voice that didn’t belong to Carine said behind him.

Cullen startled so badly he almost fell out of his chair, and he spun to see who’d spoken.

An unnaturally pale and beautiful face framed by dark locks smiled cruelly back at him. Red eyes glittered in the dark.

A vampire was in his home.

Cullen jumped out of his chair and quickly reached for his stake that was still in his pocket, but the vampire was faster. It seized Cullen’s hand in an ice cold and vice-like grip, and held it there.

Cullen tried to free himself, but the vampire’s grip was too strong. He searched his memory trying to think of an exorcism, or a banishment, anything to invoke the power of God against the creature, but the rising panic made his mind sluggish and uncooperative.

He was at the demon’s mercy.

«At first,» the vampire said leisurely, as if they were simply mates making casual conversation. His voice had a foreign lilt to it, but it wasn’t an accent Cullen could recall ever hearing before. «I thought I’d burn your house down. An eye for an eye, yes? You chase me from my home, I’ll chase you from yours.»

The demon’s smile grew even wider, baring its teeth. Cullen’s heart seized with terror.

Whatever the vampire was going to say next, Cullen knew with a sudden and terrible certainty that it was planning something far worse than burning his house down.

«They say a house isn’t a home without a woman’s presence.» The vampire said, and its smile turned lecherous.

«No,» Cullen breathed. «No!» he shouted again.

But he could see in the demon’s eyes that it had made up its mind, and he realized with sickening clarity that there was nothing he could do. Carine was in the pantry, where there were no exits, and he was an old man who would struggle to win a fight against a human assailant, he didn’t stand a chance against the vampire before him.

He gave his hand a wild tug, desperate to escape the vampire’s grasp and get to his daughter, but the vampire only cackled and squeezed his hand roughly. Cullen howled in agony as every bone in his hand was crushed, and his vision went white from the pain. His legs gave out beneath him.

«Father!» he heard Carine cry from the pantry, and the scraping sounds of something being pushed out of the way in a hurry.

The vampire smiled wildly at the sound of Carine approaching. «Do you think she’ll beg?» it asked Cullen, almost giddily.

«Don’t touch her!» Cullen hissed through the pain in his hand as he struggled back to his feet. If he could distract it for long enough for Carine to make it out of the house…

The door flung open, and Carine burst into the room and ran towards him. «Father, I heard-» she skidded to a sudden halt when she spotted the third person in the room. 

«Carine, run! Get out! Now!» her father shouted at her, but Carine was frozen to the spot, a dinner plate still in her hands.

Her eyes were zeroed in on her father’s hand, disfigured and discolored when it had been fine only minutes ago. She looked up at the vampire, and Cullen could see realization dawn in her eyes as she took in the creature’s inhuman stillness and cold, red eyes.

He saw her eyes flicker to the window, but it was too high up. Even if she did manage to climb up, the vampire would have plenty of time to pull her back into the room.

And as her eyes flickered back to her father, Cullen realized with dread that his daughter wouldn’t leave him, not even to save her own life.

The vampire chuckled. «What a well-mannered daughter you have there,» it cooed as it took the plate from Carine’s hand and presented it to Cullen with a gleeful flourish. «She brings one meal for her father…» It bowed courteously before Cullen, offering him a devilish grin, before it returned its attention to Carine. It walked a circle around her, keeping its eyes on her neck all the while. «And one for me.»

Without further ado, it pulled her into its grasp and sank its teeth into her throat.

Carine’s shrill scream pierced the room, followed by the nauseating snapping sounds of her ribs breaking as the vampire clutched her tightly. She went limp in its grasp.

A few feet away from the two, pastor Cullen went limp as well.

«Carine,» he gasped, unable to tear his eyes away from the grotesque tableau before him.

The vampire released her abruptly, letting her fall like a sack of potatoes.

«Delectable,» it hissed, tongue darting out to catch a small trail of blood that had dribbled down the corner of its mouth. 

«Like honey and lavender,» it continued, smiling wickedly down at Carine, and used its boot to tilt her head so it could see her face. It hummed in approval. It then looked sharply back up at Cullen, and winked at him. «Best of luck, eh, reverend?»

Cullen stared uncomprehendingly. The demon’s mocking words washed over him, and he felt strangely distant to everything that was happening, as if he were an actor on a stage and waiting for the curtain to roll so the vampire would leave, and Carine would get back up…

Selfishly, he found himself wishing the vampire could have killed him first, so he could have been spared seeing his daughter felled in such a way.

But then, just when he thought the vampire would lunge at him and drain him of life the way it had Carine, the creature was gone, vanished into thin air.

Cullen looked wildly around the room, expecting it to pop out of a corner again, but the only sound in the room was that of his own harsh breaths. There was no sign of the demon.

After waiting for a beat, Cullen scrambled towards his daughter’s form where she lay collapsed, and touched her face with his good hand.

She was deathly white, almost as pale as the vampire had been, and her neck was marred by an ugly, festering bite mark, smeared with her own blood. He was surprised to find she was still conscious, her blue eyes unfocused with pain, snapping sharply for short, harsh breaths.

How cruel of the demon, he thought, to not even kill her outright, but leave her to suffer instead.

Gathering strength he hadn’t known he still possessed, Cullen drew her into his lap and stroked her hair. «There, my child, you’ll soon be with the Lord,» he whispered as soothingly as he managed.

He hadn’t been sure if she could hear him, but Carine shut her eyes, and managed a small nod as her hands tightened into shaky fists and her breaths grew even faster.

Cullen quietly administered the last rites to her before he settled them both more comfortably against the wall, where he waited for her to draw her final breath.

* * *

That final breath never came.

Night turned into the early hours of the day, and she seemed to be growing stronger, not fading away.

A strange tension remained in her, she was tense like a coiled feather and wouldn’t stop shaking, and as the hours went by more and more whimpers escaped. She seemed to be in terrible pain, and where the pain of his own ruined hand had dulled as the hours went by, Carine’s misery only seemed to be getting worse as she got stronger.

Eventually he dared to move her into her bed, and as he felt sure enough that she wouldn’t die while he was away he left to get help.

The doctor came right away, to Cullen’s everlasting gratitude.

He poked and prodded at Carine, asked her questions, and through gasps of pain she told him that she felt like she was on fire. The doctor nodded to himself, and bloodlet her. She didn’t even feel it.

«It’s hysteria,» he told the pastor on his way out. «A hysterical fever brought on by being assailed by that villain. It’s why she has no outward signs of illness, it’s all a fabrication of her mind. Bloodlet her again tonight, and I imagine her moods will settle very soon.»

Cullen couldn’t help feeling grateful that it wasn’t a worse diagnosis. It was obvious when he thought about it, Carine had spent her life surrounded by God-fearing Christians, it was only to be expected that her humors would be thrown out of balance by an assault like the one she had been made to endure. He could only thank the Lord the demon hadn’t gone further and ruined her completely.

So he asked the parish to pray for her, and prayed at her bedside until nightfall, hoping the Lord would grant her a speedy recovery.

* * *

On the second day he couldn’t get through to her at all.

She tossed and turned in agony, and though she tried to stay silent even now, she couldn’t keep a few piercing, agonized screams from escaping.

The doctor’s verdict remained the same, but this time he had the pastor help him strap her down to her bed, so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

Night fell, and her screams grew more frequent.

Cullen stayed by her bedside all night, reciting every prayer he knew.

* * *

On the third day, she broke free of her restraints. When Cullen tried to strap her back down, he couldn’t hold her down, and he ended up forced to watch as she tossed about more wildly than ever, tearing at her hair and clawing at her own skin. She’d given up on staying silent, and her screams pierced the air without a moment’s respite, louder and more heart-wrenching than that first, piercing scream she’d uttered when the vampire first bit her.

He didn’t understand how she managed to stay conscious through such exertions, but he knew by then with that certain kind of unshakable sureness that whatever was afflicting his daughter, it wasn’t hysteria.

As the hours ticked by, her misery only got worse, and all he could do was keep a cold cloth on her forehead and pray more desperately than ever.

Finally, just after night had fallen, she stopped tossing and turning in favor of clutching at her chest. She sobbed wretchedly, but no tears would come, and as the pastor watched, her back arched as she lifted off the bed like an invisible hand was pulling her up, and she let out one final, heart-rending scream before collapsing back onto the bed, where she remained unmoving.

Cullen darted to her side. Had her heart given out?

He was prepared to give her the last rites again, but as he looked down upon her, he realized with a start that she no longer resembled his daughter.

He hadn’t seen it while she was contorting in agony, but a change had come over her, slowly and creeping, like a flower that bloomed, fast enough that it changed completely in a matter of days, yet subtle and slow enough that the bare human eye couldn’t catch it.

Her limbs were stronger, her skin as hard and smooth as marble, and he could see none of the little imperfections that had once given her pretty face so much character.

She was beautiful.

Inhumanly so.

_Best of luck, eh, reverend?_

No. 

No, no, no, no, no…

Her eyes opened, and they were red as blood.

Her eyes bored into his own, only inches away, and he could see the fires of hell burn in what had until moments ago been his daughter’s eyes, blue like his own.

Neither of them moved.

There was a stake on the nightstand. He’d kept it there in case the vampire returned to finish what it started with Carine, and it was within his reach. If he could get it, and end Carine’s cursed existence before it truly began, perhaps her soul could still find solace with the Lord…

But before he could get that far, Carine’s hand flew to her throat, so quickly that he didn’t even see it move. A strangled gasp escaped from her throat, and her eyes fixed on his throat.

Cullen seized the stake and scrambled back, wondering if he would even get a chance to kill Carine, or if her first act of evil now that she had joined the ranks of the unholy would be to drink the blood of her own father.

But Carine didn’t attack. Her hand remained at her throat, and she shut her eyes and remained perfectly still for several long seconds.

Finally, keeping the stake from her view, Cullen inched one step closer. 

Carine’s reaction was immediate.

«Don’t!» she cried in a too lovely voice, one that sounded more like a bird singing than a person talking, and fled to the corner of the room, again so fast that he didn’t actually see the movement, only that she was suddenly crouching on top of a stack of her books, more graceful than any cat.

He pressed his lips together in consternation, and let her see the stake. She flinched when she saw it, and looked back up at him with a look of betrayal in her hellfire eyes.

«You’ve become a demon, Carine,» he said coldly. 

The words came easier than he’d expected. 

He suspected a part of him had known from the moment the demon had given what was left of her back to him, but he’d been too afraid to admit it.

Too weak.

Had he been stronger, he would have realized what was happening and put Carine out of her misery while her soul could still be saved. He wondered if the devil himself had been in the room with them, laughing while Carine screamed and her reverend father sat oblivious by her side. Anger flared up in him.

He wasn’t going to fail her again.

«If there’s any fear of God left in you, surrender now.» His hand tightened around the stake.

Carine just stared at him. Her eyes slipped to his neck again for a second, before she shut them again. She was as still as the room around her.

Well, then.

Cullen moved decisively towards her, raising the stake to shoulder-level.

Carine’s eyes widened, and a sound of despair escaped her as her eyes locked onto his throat again.

Then she vanished entirely, though he could sense a gust of wind wash over him as she moved past him.

He ran down the stairs to the main room, where he found her again. She was pressed against the far wall, hand still on her throat, her eyes flickering madly about her, staring at things Cullen couldn’t see.

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, and he halted in his movement.

He could see hunger in those unnatural, glowing, red eyes, a rabid, consuming hunger that made his insides seize up in terror.

But there was fear in her eyes too, a profound horror that seemed to run even deeper than his own.

She broke away from his gaze and looked to the window. Her hand scratched and stroked absently at her throat, with movements so quick her fingers were a blur. Her whole figure trembled.

Abruptly, her figure stilled. Her shoulders lowered, and a sort of calm came over her. She spun back to look at him, again so fast that it was like she’d never moved at all.

«Father, I-» she began in her new voice, before she broke off, looking more tormented than ever. 

When she next spoke, her words came so quickly he barely caught the words, «I will destroy myself, I promise.» 

She looked back into his eyes, glowing red on sky blue, as if she hoped to convey her sincerity with her eyes, since she was having so much trouble speaking. 

He wondered if she even knew what she looked like now.

Then she was gone.

* * *

Years went by.

Pastor Cullen threw himself into his work, hunting, burning, and drowning demons and witches relentlessly, but he never found the vampire that had entered his home that fateful night.

Carine’s things were packed up and donated to the parish, even the clothes she’d made or mended for her father were given away. Cullen did not suffer anybody to mention her in his presence, and the parish soon learned not to speak of Carine Cullen at all.

But his advanced age caught up with old Cullen soon enough, and soon he was bedridden.

It was funny, all his life he’d longed for the day he’d be with the Lord, but knowing that Carine wouldn’t be waiting for him with her mother in Paradise filled his heart with melancholia. He had lost his enthusiasm for life, and he couldn’t seem to summon up an enthusiasm for the afterlife either.

It went against his teachings, but he couldn’t shake the blasphemous thought that Paradise without his daughter wouldn’t be Paradise at all.

He was awakened one night by someone quietly smoothing out his duvets. He was frowning before he even opened his eyes, hadn’t his nurse retired for the night?

A single oil lamp had been lit on his nightstand, and as his eyes adjusted he saw the flames flicker over a feminine form that was slighter than Gladys’ and far paler. She held herself unnaturally still.

His veins turned to ice as he recognized her.

Carine looked much as she had the night she left him, but there was a difference about her all the same, one he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Something in the way she held herself. Her long, blonde hair was loose down her back, not a style he would ever have permitted her to wear in public if he were still her father, and she was wearing a pale dress. It was far too simple for a woman of her former standing, and too light given how cold it was in the room, but she didn’t appear bothered.

Still, she was as impossibly beautiful as he remembered, perhaps even more so. Where the demon’s beauty had struck terror into his heart, Carine looked like an angel.

How deceptive, Cullen thought, that Satan’s underlings should appear so wonderful, that they made men look like the pale imitation.

She wasn’t unhinged like she’d been the last time he saw her, but there was still a tension in her, like a coil ready to spring.

Her eyes were downcast, fixed on his hand that lay on top of the covers, the one that had been ruined that night. It never healed properly, but he didn’t mind the disfigurement as much as those around him believed he secretly did. He would have minded worse if he’d escaped unscathed while Carine suffered her unhappy fate.

Finally Carine looked up to meet his gaze.

He started at the color of her eyes. They weren’t red as he’d expected, but gold, like honey. The pupils weren’t vertical, but all the same he was reminded of a snake’s eyes.

Had she come to tempt him, offer up the proverbial apple, steal his soul as hers had been taken from her?

At last he remembered himself, and he looked to the nightstand, where he knew he had a Bible. The light was too poor for him to recite from it, but it was a powerful talisman.

She seemed to realize what he was thinking. «I’m not here to hurt you,» she said quickly. He’d forgotten just how lovely her voice had gotten, too, higher and clearer than any bell.

She held up her palms and leaned away from him in the chair she’d pulled up, clearly hoping to communicate harmlessness. 

He snorted at the notion.

«I thought you would have destroyed yourself by now,» he stated coldly, before she could get any further. He had no intention of humoring her.

«Didn’t you promise?» he continued, each word dripping with his scathing disappointment in her.

Because that was the issue, wasn’t it?

In the years since Carine’s unhappy fate befell her, Cullen had found a morbid comfort and pride in the fact that enough of his God-fearing daughter had remained in the demon that she recognized her own continued existence as unholy, and sought to end it.

To see now that she’d relented, that when it came down to it she would sooner break her word and walk the earth as unholy filth, spreading death and disease, made any remaining compassion he might have felt for her wither in his heart.

He wondered if the evil that had taken root in her was that powerful, overruling the good, Christian woman she’d once been, or if she had always been this weak.

Her eyes fell away from his, down to her hands, which lay folded in her lap.

«I tried,» she admitted quietly.

«I tried every way I could think of, for months on end. Nothing ever even made a scratch on me.»

She held her hand out before her, palm up, regarding it somberly. «I never even felt any pain, no matter what I tried. In the end, I decided to starve myself.»

Her eyes met his again, and she seemed to steel herself before continuing, «Father, I’m sorry that I failed, I truly am. I really did try, you have to believe me.» Her voice had a pleading note to it, and her eyes were so wide and so sincere, for a moment he could have sworn they were blue again.

What did she want from him, he wondered. Didn’t she know that absolution was beyond her now? She had been cast out from heaven, there would be no salvation for her.

She continued before he could say anything, though, and there was something he didn’t recognize at first in her voice. «Father,» she began, pausing as she picked her words, «when I was starving myself I found out… father, I don’t have to feed on humans.»

Cullen felt his face scrunch up like a table cloth in bafflement. Whatever he’d been expecting her to say next, that wasn’t it.

Carine continued talking, and as the words came out his heart sunk as he recognized what it was in her voice that hadn’t been there before: excitement.

«I feed on animals. It’s not pleasant, and I’m not satisfied, but it’s enough. I don’t need to harm humans, in fact I never have. I’ve never harmed anybody. I think that’s why my eyes are like this.» Her honey eyes held his with an intensity Carine never had in life.

Again he wondered what she wanted from him. There had to be something, or she wouldn’t have come. Could it be that she wanted his approval? For him to merrily stamp his approval on her continuing to mock the person she’d once been by living on as a monster because she gorged herself with beasts instead of men? 

He felt sick just thinking about it.

What he said was, «You don’t think your nature will seduce you soon enough?»

Her face fell, and she leaned forwards in her chair. «What choice do I have? Hm?» she said urgently, eyes bigger and more pleading than ever. One of her hands snaked towards his across the duvet, though she didn’t make contact.

She leaned even closer. «I can’t kill myself. I can’t starve myself, I tried. Feeding on animals over people is the only thing I can do to be better, father, I-» she broke off, and she seemed to realize how close to him she’d gotten.

She tried to hide her reaction, but he saw straight through her.

«How can you hope to be better when you can barely resist devouring your own father?» he asked scathingly.

Carine flinched back as if he’d struck her. «But you’ve no idea how hard this is!» she exclaimed in a voice thick with despair.

She looked at him searchingly, perhaps looking for a trace of that paternal warmth he’d given so freely all through her human life.

He had none to give her.

But he looked at her, her forlorn face and her hand that was still so close to his own, and he remembered the vampire that had attacked them both, how easily it had escaped its burning nest and then crushed Cullen’s hand like an overripe fruit.

«God has forsaken you, Carine. I can see that. But,» he held up a finger on his good hand when she opened her mouth to say something. She’d never been this insolent in life. No, that wasn’t quite true, she would sometimes interrupt him, but never with impudence, and besides that he’d been too fond of her to take real offense. Perhaps he should have been sterner with her. «You may still make your existence slightly less of a blight upon this earth.

«I couldn’t fight that thing. You couldn’t kill yourself. Whatever it takes to kill your kind, a man won’t be able to do it.» He gave her an assessing look. Immortality made her stronger, but would she be strong enough to fight others of her species? To win?

But if she wasn’t, then she would almost certainly be destroyed by others of her kind. Either way, there would be one less demon walking the earth.

That cemented the pastor’s decision.

Carine had stilled completely.

«Father, where are you going with this?» she asked quietly.

Cullen raised his chin as he gave her his most commanding stare, the one he had worn countless of times as he thundered at his parish to obey the Lord. 

«It’s too late for you, Carine,» he stated gravely. He didn’t want to give her false hope. 

Judging by her small nod, she wasn’t going to argue.

«But there may be a way for your existence to have meaning all the same,» he continued.

Carine was so still she could have been mistaken for a statue as she listened to his words.

«If you truly can’t destroy yourself, use your power to save others from sharing your fate. Devote yourself to destroy the others of your kind, those that are too powerful for men to stand against. Have no fear, for should you fall, you’ll no longer be living in sin. Let nothing stand in your way, Carine.

«Do as I have,» he finished wryly, and almost laughed at the irony of it all. «Though I’m not sure if it counts as God’s work,» he couldn’t resist musing aloud, and snorted to himself.

Carine didn’t see the joke.

She was turned to look at him, horror apparent on her face, but she had frozen over completely, like his words had cast a spell on her. Her eyes were caught in vivid emotion, but they were as still as the rest of her, making her otherness all the more clear to see.

She looked more inhuman than ever.

She sat like that for several minutes, long enough to make him wonder if she’d turned to stone right in front of him.

Finally, she spoke, in a voice so quiet he struggled to hear it. «I don’t even know how.»

«There is a way, Carine. There always is.»

Carine opened her mouth to protest again, but one strict look from him silenced her.

She gave him that same, searching look that she had before. Whatever she was looking for, he hoped she would find what she needed to see to understand that he was right, that this was the best, the only, option.

Several minutes went by.

«I never wanted to kill anybody,» she finally said, and he was surprised to see, even in the poor light, that her eyes were watery with tears. Who knew demons could weep?

Cullen gave a heavy sigh, and closed the distance between their hands. She gave a small gasp as his old, brittle hand closed around hers.

She was so cold, he reflected. He’d known she would be, but feeling it was another matter. Her skin was as ice cold and hard as any stone, and he understood a little better how killing herself had proven challenging.

He gave her hand a squeeze, wondering if she could even feel it. It seemed she could, for her lips tightened and she swallowed thickly in immediate response. Her other hand shot forwards to cover his, and after a nervous look to him, as if for permission, she squeezed him back.

«It’s the right thing to do, Carine,» he said quietly.

Tears welled up in her eyes again, and she looked at their joined hands. Her gaze wandered to his other hand, the ruined one that had become a testament to just how superior a demon’s strength was.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He could see the steel form in her eyes, and the tension she’d had since she arrived went out of her.

When she met his eyes again, he could see in her golden eyes the decision she’d made. They had that same cold conviction he’d carried over the years, the one that had fueled him in his tireless pursuits of evil things. All in the name of God.

«I’ll do it,» she said quietly. She took another breath, nodded to herself, gathered her courage. «I’ll find out how, and I’ll do it.»

Carine leaned a little closer, and gave him that same intense look of sincerity that she had given him a lifetime ago, when she promised to kill herself. «I won’t fail you again, father,» she vowed, «I’ll fight the unholy and protect humans until someone kills me. I’ll never let up, I swear it.»

Her inhuman eyes burned with fierce conviction, and he believed her.

He nodded slowly back at her.

She gave his hand one final squeeze, before she carefully placed it back on the duvet with such gentleness, he felt a bit moved.

«Never forget my words, child,» he said. «Never forget your promise to me.»

«I won’t,» Carine assured him quietly.

He nodded at her again, and the flicker of a smile ghosted across his lips.

«Go now,» he said, feeling drowsiness creep up on him.

He didn’t hear her leave, but just as he fell back to sleep he thought he felt something cold brush across his face.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding out how to kill her own kind was a happy accident.

Carine spotted him in the outskirts of a small village. He moved in flashes, keeping in the shadows, slowly but surely making his way towards an unpainted farmhouse.

She hadn’t meant to stumble upon him. She still had no idea how she would actually fight another vampire, nevermind how she would kill one. She wasn’t even sure if her kind could be killed, considering just how pathetically her many attempts to end her own existence had ended. She’d even tried to ask God to smite her at one point, that hadn’t worked either. She was starting to worry she would just have to walk the earth until Rapture.

And though she couldn’t imagine anyone being stronger than she was, she was well aware of the disadvantages her sex faced against males, and what if vampires of the other sex retained that advantage?

There were too many variables to attack right away.

So she laid down on her stomach in the moss, out of sight, watching him through the shrubbery.

Then, right before her eyes, the vampire suddenly stiffened before bolting forwards. She realized what was about to happen in the millisecond before it did, and could only watch in horror as the vampire lunged at a young man who’d just appeared in the door opening of the farmhouse.

«No!» Carine screamed in horror, but the creature had already torn into the human’s neck, too caught up in devouring its prey to hear to her cry.

She could see the blood from where she stood, its vibrant red color the most mesmerizing thing she’d ever seen, seeming to drain the color out of its surroundings so everything else seemed dull and lusterless next to that rich red. She could hear the human’s distressed heart racing, _thump-thump-thump-thump,_ like a song drawing her in. The instinct to run over and help him had almost made her run towards the two at first, but another instinct, one far more primal and powerful came over her and had washed the first one out before she could act on it.

Even hundreds of meters away, the wind carried the intoxicating scent of the man’s blood over to Carine, almost uncomfortable with the way it made her head spin away from her and her throat burn like she had swallowed a thousand shards of glass. She felt venom pool in her mouth as the frenzy she’d come to know all too well whenever she was tempted threatened to overrule her.

She couldn’t move a step closer, she realized. If she did, she’d lose what little control she had and join the other vampire for his meal.

It took all her willpower to shut her eyes, purse her lips together, and dig her fingers into the earth beneath her and remain where she was. 

The human’s heartbeat had long given out by the time the vampire dropped him to the ground. Carine wanted to look away, but she felt in sick sense she owed the human. It was one thing that she hadn’t been able to save him, but longing to join in on killing him the way she had…

She knew exactly how disgusted her father would have been if he had seen even a second of what just happened, and it was almost too much to bear.

And unless she didn’t learn how to kill vampires, this was only going to happen again and again.

The vampire had walked into the famhouse, and returned a moment later with a new coat on. It must have been left by the human. Anger coiled in Carine’s stomach at the audacity of robbing a person he’d just killed as she watched him from afar. 

Her mind spun as she contemplated what to do. 

Should she follow him? It wouldn’t do if he caught her. And he likely would, Carine had never attempted to follow anybody before. On the other hand, what if he had friends he was waiting to join up with, and this was her one chance to get him?

Then again, she would hardly be getting anyone. Strangling him would have no effect. Stabbing, staking, and punching would be just as pointless. It would be like two trees engaged in glorious battle. They can declare it to their heart’s content, but they’ll only be shaking their branches at each other for a while until they resign themselves to the fact that they’re getting nowhere. Unless, of course, the other vampire knew how to kill their kind, in which case Carine’s career as a vampire hunter would be even more short-lived than she had been.

She knew what her father’s verdict would have been. He had made it clear that he did not want her walking the earth in her current state. And even without her father’s sentiment, Carine wasn’t afraid of dying. She was already dead in most of the ways that counted. 

And there would be more humans dying such deaths if she walked away.

She’d just have to follow him, and try to come up with something.

Perhaps she could even introduce herself, and try to trick him into telling her how to destroy their kind. Be the Delilah to his Samson. Her father wouldn’t have liked it, wouldn’t have approved of anything short of storming at the vampire with a mighty sword and simmering hot oil, but she had find out how to kill vampires before she did anything stupid.

Carine wasn’t sure if her prayers still counted when God wanted nothing to do with her, but she sent one for the human she’d just failed to save all the same, and prayed she’d have the strength and wisdom to save the next one. It couldn’t hurt.

Then she stiffened, as she caught the scent of a human coming from somewhere behind her.

For all that all her movements were as fast as lightening, it felt like time had slowed down as she turned her head around to look through the thick forest behind her.

Three hundred meters away from where Carine was hiding, a human girl was walking in her direction. 

She couldn’t be older than twelve or so, and she appeared to be making a game of stepping only on the tree roots, skipping lightly along the forest floor, smiling to herself.

She smelled so much better than the other human had.

Carine’s head spun back to look at the vampire. He still hadn’t noticed Carine, but he had noticed the human. As Carine watched, a sinister appreciation came over his face as he sniffed deeply at the air around him. A feral grin passed his lips, and he turned into a near blur as he started running towards the human.

This time, when the instinct to fight the other vampire flared up in Carine, she didn’t fight it.

It had been one thing with the other human, Carine hadn’t had the chance to save him. It was quite another to watch the vampire kill again so soon, when he had to be full already. Its thirst was surely more sated than Carine’s had ever been, but it didn’t care. Killing the girl for her scent, turning a child into a delicacy, like nothing mattered at all…

Carine had to stop him.

Even if she failed now, even if she died, she could buy the human enough time to make it back to civilization. There was a village nearby the girl was probably headed to, if Carine could keep the vampire distracted for a few minutes…

Just as the vampire ran past her hiding place, Carine pounced, tackling him to the ground. There was a thunderous clap as their bodies collided, like two stone boulders had just fallen on one another, but Carine didn’t have time to be distracted by the noise as the vampire had rolled them around in less than a second, so she was suddenly the one on the bottom.

As the vampire’s snarling face and gleaming teeth descended towards her at lightening speed, his bloodstained face distorted by mindless fury, Carine could only glumly note that it appeared she wouldn’t be buying the human child much time at all.

Still, she sent her forehead crashing up into his, hoping to at the very least buy the child another heartbeat.

She had very little momentum, so she couldn’t imagine she’d hurt him, but he was surprised enough by the move that she managed to roll out from under him, hoping to gain some distance from his snapping teeth.

The vampire jumped off of her and into a crouch, glaring at her suspiciously. He appeared to have forgotten his thirst. That was a mercy, at least. Carine crouched too, out of instinct, but it felt more like an awkward curtsey than a fighting pose. It wasn’t like she had any idea what on earth she would do next.

She knew, with grim acceptance, that she wasn’t going to win this fight.

«I know this territory isn’t claimed,» the vampire hissed at her, his bright red eyes and the still-fresh blood on his face and clothes a stark reminder of what had occurred only minutes earlier and why Carine couldn’t fail now.

Even though failure was inevitable.

Carine didn’t reply to the vampire. She only stared back into his eyes, wondering if she looked at all intimidating with her awkward posture, tangled hair, and torn clothes, or if she just looked unkempt.

«Are you dumb?» the vampire snarled, and seemed to lose his temper. He pounced on her, but Carine spun out of the way just in time, her hair flying out behind her. Luckily, he didn’t grab it. Small mercies, she supposed - that would have been a woefully inglorious way to die.

The vampire whirled around to face her, and she knew she had to act.

In a fit of pure impulse, and for lack of anything else to do, she grabbed his shoulder with her hands, and bit his throat as hard as she could.

She was startled to find her teeth pierced his skin, sinking easily into the stone-like flesh with little resistance. As she withdrew from his throat with the piece of his neck that she’d just bitten off of him still in her mouth, she could see the gaping hole she’d just made of his neck.

His eyes were wide, horrified, glaring wildly at her as a wordless growl made it out past his lips, one of his hands grasping at his wound, the other reaching for Carine.

Carine didn’t even pause to think.

In a moment, she’d run up behind the vampire, hooked one arm around his neck, and with the other she pushed against his back for leverage.

His head came off with more force than she’d ever had to use thus far in her unlife, but it came off. His body crumbled to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and she let his head, face frozen in an expression of outrage, fall from her arms as she looked down at her fallen foe.

She’d done it.

She’d killed a vampire, just like she had promised her father she would.

It was strangely anticlimactic. 

She had expected to feel fulfilled in some way, relieved to know she could do what her father had asked of her. Satisfied, even. She was a demon, from the moment she’d woken up she’d craved blood and violence, and so she would have thought that there would have been some kind dark exhilaration in her after an act such as this one.

But she couldn’t bring herself to be pleased with what she had just done.

His head had rolled so it faced away from her, and she was glad for it. She’d rather not know the face of her victim any better than she already did.

One of the vampire’s fingers twitched.

Carine’s eyes widened.

The fingers seemed to have made some decision, because they dug into the earth beneath them, and pulled the vampire’s headless body towards its head that was just a few feet away.

Hurriedly, Carine picked up the head and backed away. She was back to where she started, then. She’d have to figure out how to destroy a vampire’s body if she wanted this done with.

She supposed she could tear the creature into tiny pieces and scatter them all across the world, but the idea seemed distasteful to her. She’d only resort to that if she had no other choice.

The creature’s headless body continued to crawl its way towards her, slowly, so slowly, striving to be whole again.

In a flash she’d flown halfway up a tree and was staring down at that horrible, moving, body, her hands still clutching that damned head as her mind worked to figure out what to do next.

It was only several hours filled with various creative attempts to destroy the vampire later, that Carine tried to burn it. She was surprised when the body caught on fire: it had been one of the first things she’d tried when she was trying to kill herself, and it hadn’t worked then.

As the air around her filled with thick smoke and the sweet, cloying, scent of the vampire burning, Carine started forming plans.

* * *

Carine had soon developed methods for killing vampires.

She’d walk in human settlements at night, sweeping unheard and unseen through the streets, until she happened upon the scent of vampires.

Once she was on to someone, she’d stalk them, tracking their scent and watching them from afar as she plotted the best way to take them down.

The lone travellers weren’t too hard.

She preferred not to make contact at all. She’d find out where they were nesting and lie nearby in waiting, waiting to jump out at them when they least expected it. This was most effective in the winters, when heavy waves of snow would cover her scent and give her cover as she waited, for days if needed, with oil, alcohol, firewood and matchsticks ready in her satchel.

But some of them weren’t nesting anywhere, they had no fixed location at all, they just wandered from place to place.

The first time she realized the vampire she was tracking, a woman with bright red hair, wasn’t going to settle anywhere, she tried to simply attack her. Unfortunately, the woman had somehow sensed her coming from miles away, and was making her escape almost as soon as Carine decided to attack her.

After that, Carine was more devious with the nomads.

She’d make a sound from a distance, alerting them to her presence so they wouldn’t think she was sneaking up on them. Then she’d come forwards at human speed with a smile on her face, claiming to be looking for someone to travel with. Some of them agreed readily, wanting to go hunting right away as a demented sort of bonding activity, and she was forced to act sooner than she would have liked. Others were less easily fooled, suspicious of her yellow eyes, and kept her at a safe distance, if they didn’t chase her away outright.

Inevitably, they all became hungry, and she would get her opening on a hunt, when they were too distracted by the imminent flow of blood to think clearly.

Even if they did manage to fight back, she found that although she was weaker than everyone she encountered, she wasn’t such a terrible fighter. She kept a cool head, never depending on her strength, always dancing out of reach, quick when she had an opening. She had a feeling most of the vampires she encountered had never been in a fight before. And she got better with each time.

It also helped that she got creative with fire.

She had yet to find a material that could cut vampire skin, not even diamond cutters did the trick. But a fight was as good won as soon as she had managed to incinerate a limb from the vampire, and for that she needed to be able to light fires quickly.

Bottles of alcohol that she’d stuffed with cloth she then lit on fire and threw on the vampire, ready made traps of gunpowder on the ground that would turn the stage into a fiery chaos, dousing the vampire with oil, lighting it on fire and then ripping a limb off so the wound would catch fire… some of her ideas had turned out to be outright stupid and almost got her killed, but the good ones gave her an edge she sorely needed when she was so weak compared to everyone else.

It wasn’t perfect.

Most of her victories were hard bought, and sometimes she came even closer to losing than she had that day with the first vampire. Sometimes, limbs were torn from her, and she won only with her teeth and unyielding will.

Worse yet, that first time a human had been killed right in front of her had been a terrible blow, but much to her despair it wasn’t the last. More often than not a vampire would slip between the cracks of her system, and have himself a feast right in front of her. Each time she was forced to watch powerlessly, not trusting herself to move closer without joining in on the debauchery.

There was also the fact that she couldn’t go on winning forever, and she knew that painfully well. She was surprised she’d lasted as long as she had. Others might have gained a sense of confidence from this, but she didn’t. No, she only felt like she was testing fate, that each battle won was stretching the string of fate just a little bit further, and soon it would snap back.

One of these days she was going to lose, and after that she would only have the fires of Hell to keep her company for all eternity.

When it came to the covens, those were even more difficult. She could fight one vampire at a time, but not more than that. Depending on the size of the coven, if there were only two or three of them she would wait for one to step away from the others and pick them off in that way. If they were more numerous than that, she was forced to separate them herself.

And much to her burning shame, while there were several ways to do that, there was one that stood out as easier and more efficient than the others, by far.

Even as a human everyone had always told her she was beautiful, and in death she was even more so, even among vampires. Her hair, which she kept in a loose braid to keep it from getting in the way, had always been praised for its striking color, and her blue eyes had been likened to all sorts of lovely things. Of course, they weren’t so lovely anymore, but vampires found their gold exotic. Novelty, she learned, was attractive to vampires.

When she approached a coven with a smile filled with hidden things and introduced herself in a murmur, it was rarely long before she was pulled aside, usually by one of the males.

These were actually her easiest kills, she resented having to resort to such means but it was the safest way, and pitifully easy to get the vampires to let her mouth near their necks.

It was harder when a mated couple were both interested in her, but the shock of seeing their mate’s head torn off gave Carine the edge she needed to win even that fight swiftly.

The covens wouldn’t come back to check for some time, either, making it all the easier for Carine to orchestrate their demises as well.

Her heart had grown cold, she knew.

She still didn’t relish her kills, not even when her foes were particularly monstrous, or gave her a particularly hard fight. They all burned the same, and there was no victory in the stench of death.

She buried them all. It was more a gesture when she couldn’t inter them in consecrated ground, but all the same she gathered up their ashes and laid them to rest in the nearest peaceful place she could find.

She prayed for their souls, too. 

She doubted a prayer from her could help much, that anything at all could help a damned creature, but she wanted to do it for them. It was very likely they wouldn’t want her prayers, they surely hated her for what she did to them, but she doubted anybody else was going to bother.

She wondered if her father had prayed for her.

Years went on like this. 

It was one warm summer day that something out of the ordinary happened.

She’d been tracking a coven of five vampires from Perpignan to Carcassonne for the past few days, waiting for the right moment to approach them.

The time had yet to be right.

She watched from hundreds of yards away as the group moved closer to the city walls of Carcassonne. She frowned. The sun shone brightly, the humans would be sure to spot them.

Vampires, for all that they were near invulnerable, took great caution to avoid being seen by humans. They lived in the shadows, attacking lone humans, some of them even took the extra care to dispose of the bodies. Carine couldn’t understand why, it wasn’t like her father had been able to put up a fight against her killer, and she couldn’t imagine a mob of humans would fare much better either. Not that she was protesting, her stomach coiled with dread at the thought of what would become of humans if vampires showed no temperance. Still, it was quite strange.

And yet, here was a group of vampires, laughing among themselves as the sun shone down upon them and they blurred towards Carcassonne. With five easy, graceful jumps, they were over the ancient walls, and the next thing Carine heard was the sound of several humans screaming.

For a moment she was utterly frozen in shock.

No one fed in public like that, not ever, vampires always took care to hide…

But here was the exception.

Her legs were propelling her forwards before she’d even formed the thought to move forwards.

It was one thing when a vampire got the best of her and fed on a human as she watched impotently, even if she could resist the blood there was nothing she could do to save them once the venom was in their blood.

But this…

She knew as she raced towards the city walls that if she did nothing, every human in the city would be killed.

She also knew that this wasn’t a fight she was going to win.

She hadn’t fed in a week. She was outnumbered and unprepared. She would be overwhelmed by her own thirst almost as soon as she stepped foot in a bloodbath like that. This was most likely going to be that elusive, last fight she’d known for some time had been coming, the one she would lose.

But caution wasn’t an option.

So she ran, with no plan in mind beyond making the vampires stop.

The bloodbath was even worse than she was expecting.

The narrow street she landed in was already littered with dead and wounded, and fresh blood ran in thick rivers across the cobblestones. At the sight of Carine, glittering like a diamond in the sun and too fast and beautiful to be anything but a demon, the surviving humans abandoned the wounded they’d been trying to help, and fell over themselves in their screaming desperation to get away from her.

The thirst scorched her throat, making her almost dizzy with desire for blood.

But with a crystal-minded determination unlike anything she had managed thus far in her un-life, Carine put her thirst easily aside, like it was nothing more than a strand of hair to brush out of her face, and focused on the task at hand. She almost couldn’t believe how easy it felt in that moment, but she had no time to dwell on it.

She found the first vampire easily enough, he’d broken into a house in that same street and was tearing his way through a family. His head was off his shoulders and had been thrown into the burning hearth before he even saw her coming. She threw the body out into the street below, ripping off its arms when she landed on the cobblestone next to it, and then she was off again to find the others.

The next two vampires were felled as easily as the first one, distracted as they were by their feast. She shoved their heads into her satchel, not wanting to waste time burning them, and ran to kill the last two.

She lost count of how many dead humans she ran past, many of whom hadn’t even been fed on, their bodies lying broken and discarded in the open streets as silent witnesses to the vampires’ bottomless malice. 

Those last two did put up a fight, perhaps they’d noticed something amiss as the screams ended in their coven-mates’ parts of the ancient city. They growled at her in unison, and pounced.

In any other fight, this would have been trouble for her.

But today she was unstoppable.

Her mind wasn’t clouded by bloodthirst like theirs were, and the fight lasted only seconds as she matched them both blow for blow, taking their limbs with ease.

When all the vampires lay headless on the ground, it took her only seconds to run through the city and gather up the vampire remnants that she’d left scattered behind her on her hunt through the city. Traumatized humans wept with terror at the sight of her inhuman feats, but there was no point in hiding her nature after what the other vampires had just done for all to see, or in attempting to comfort any of the humans. They would be wise to be afraid.

She was about to flee the city with the remnants to burn them in the woods when she heard a cry somewhere in the city.

She had followed the sound in an instant, and found herself staring at a pale and bloodied girl lying in the streets. Her eyes were wide open and glazed over with pain.

On her neck, almost indistinguishable with all the blood smeared across it, was the mark of a vampire’s bite. 

It was strange, all that blood coupled with a living heartbeat should have bothered Carine to the point of madness, but even with the threat of the five vampires out of the picture she found that she could keep a cool head.

«It burns,» the girl sobbed, tears streaming down her face as she clutched at her neck.

Carine’s heart fell with the heavy weight of dread. She knelt by the girl’s side.

«Make it stop, I can’t- can’t- it _burns_!» the girl babbled on, her whole body trembling as a liquid fire Carine remembered all too well spread through her veins.

She looked pleadingly up at Carine, and weakly tried to shuffle closer to her, as if Carine’s presence would ease her pain.

«You’ll be fine,» Carine promised quietly, stroking the girl’s cheek as she smiled as kindly as she could manage. 

The girl’s eyes closed for a moment, and Carine’s hand slipped underneath her head. 

With a quick pressure of her fingers, the girl’s neck was broken, and her tremors stopped. Carine shut her eyes as venom burned in her eyes, and shuddered against the threatening onslaught of a sob.

There had been no time to administer the last rites to the girl. Carine prayed over her still body to make up for it, hoping God would have an ear out for an innocent.

Looking around herself at the horror tableau before her with new eyes, she blurred from one fallen human to the next as she made sure they were all dead.

She had given mercy to eleven more infected humans by the time she was done.

Distantly, almost hysterically, she wondered if she had crossed some sort of line with God. Until this point, she’d never raised a hand against the innocent. Would He appreciate her good intent to save their souls? She doubted it. She’d given up hope for her own salvation when her father told her there was none, so she supposed it didn’t make a difference either way.

She could perhaps convince herself it was nice, to truly have nothing to lose anymore. Let there be no more wondering about the state of her soul: she knew where she was headed.

* * *

After that day, Carine grew bolder.

She hadn’t conquered her bloodthirst, not by a long shot. But now she knew it was possible to control herself in a way she wouldn’t have dreamed a vampire could before, and she started training herself to resist the lure of human blood.

When she had no vampires to track, she went as close to humans as she dared, breathing in all their smells and listening to the sweet music of their heartbeats, forcing herself to relax in the face of that indescribable temptation.

She dropped the pretense with single vampires, opting instead to kill them as soon as they let her close. Being on guard didn’t much help them.

She didn’t need the long stretches of waiting when couples travelled together anymore either, she could take two at a time. (But not, as she learned by trial and near fatal error, three)

She wasn’t winning by the skin of her teeth anymore, either. 

She was getting very, very, good at this.

She carried on like this for some time. 

Then, she came across a coven unlike any she’d ever seen before.

There were seven of them, making them the largest coven she’d encountered thus far.

They were all dressed the same, unlike the vagabonds she was used to seeing. Carine looked like a vagabond herself, she’d taught herself to make her own clothes over the years so she wouldn’t have to steal, but somehow there was just no escaping the bohemian peasant look. 

There was nothing bohemian or vagabond about this group, however.

They were wearing dark, heavy cloaks, with the hoods drawn up. They walked in formation, forming a perfect, smooth V, another thing Carine hadn’t seen vampires do before.

They were so austere, so perfectly synchronous, there was a whole other otherworldly air about them, starkly different from what Carine was used to seeing. For a moment, she fancied that these creatures weren’t vampires at all, but something else entirely.

But she’d seen the blood red in their eyes, and their skin was stone-like marble as her own.

And so, Carine crept close enough to let her nose fill with their scents, her mind working furiously as she plotted a way to kill them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes - I just don’t believe vampires can die by arson. Several canon events would look different, the biggest point of evidence is that Carlisle, desperate to kill himself and knowing that his father burned demons to kill them, must have tried to light himself on fire. So either Carlisle is one of those ridiculous people who can’t get a fire started for dear life, or vampire skin is inflammable. It’d be really funny if it was the former, but it’s Carlisle, he’s too competent for that. It must be the venom that’s flammable.
> 
> While I’m at it, I don’t buy that vampires can’t grow out their hair, hair is only going to stay nice for so long. Give it a few decades, and you’d gonna have to shave it all off. Either everyone’s wearing really nice wigs and no one’s had the heart to tell Bella yet, or vampire hair grows.


	3. Chapter 3

Consciousness returned to her in the form of pain.

The sensation of waking up was incredibly disorienting. Since she became a vampire all those years ago, Carine had constantly been aware of everything around her. To float in nothingness, her senses suffused by a black smog that made it impossible to form coherent thoughts even for a moment, scared her in a way nothing else ever had. She couldn’t even wonder if she was in hell, her mind was too dazed and sluggish.

Then her vision cleared, the blackness falling away like ink slipping off glass, and she was staring down at a stone floor she’d never seen before.

Her head had been removed, she realized dazedly.

She was sitting on the floor, held upright by a vice grip on her shoulders from.

«Ne bouge pas,» a voice hissed into her ear from behind her. Don’t move.

Carine didn’t need to be told twice.

She didn’t dare move her head around to take in the room she had been brought to, but from what she could see in front of her there were at least fifteen vampires in it, and a tentative sniff informed her nose of more than thirty different scents.

She’d never been in a room with even a quarter of that many vampires before.

In the middle of the room, right ahead of her, was a round dais, and three vampires sat in stone thrones atop it. They were unlike any of the other demons she had ever come across.

Their skin was brittle, almost porous, and their eyes seemed covered in a milky glaze. A vampire was supposedly timeless, yet something instinctual told her these three were _old_. Like they’d been demons for so long, every last vestige of humanity had fallen away, leaving only the lifeless stone of the vampire.

The one in the middle curved his lips when he caught her looking at him, eyebrows raising slightly. He seemed amused somehow, as if he were expecting something to happen.

Fear coiled like iron serpents in Carine’s stomach as she wondered why her captors had brought her here instead of killing her outright. 

The vampire in the middle rose from his throne, and seemed to glide across the room towards her, more graceful than any other creature she’d seen. A petite, timid-looking woman followed him like a shadow, keeping a small hand on his shoulder the whole time.

The hands on Carine’s shoulders tightened as the vampire got close.

The vampire tilted his head and regarded her quietly for another few seconds, seemingly captivated. He was looking at her eyes, Carine realized. She’d made sure to feed just before attacking the cloaked seven, so her eyes would have been at their brightest…

Was that why she was alive? Because her eyes were a curiosity?

That couldn’t be it, she decided, though the glint in the ancient’s eyes had her less than sure.

Finally, he spoke. «I hear you gave my subjects a bit of trouble,» he said, also in French. He used vous, Carine noted, surprised by his cordiality.

Carine nodded. There was no point in denying it.

«Might I inquire as to your motives?» he said pleasantly, as if he were inquiring into perfectly palatable matters.

The impulse to lie did occur to Carine, but she’d thrown it out in the next moment. She was a decent enough liar, but she had tried to kill this man’s subjects. There would be no talking herself out of that, and she would sooner die a proud Christian than a cowering liar.

«Because I made a promise to my father,» she replied in her own accented French, a little surprised her voice was as clear and perfect as it always was. She hadn’t expected her throat to be repaired that quickly.

The ancient nodded to himself, and pursed his lips in displeasure. «Your creator made you his pawn, then.» He seemed somehow disappointed by this.

«No!» Carine protested, almost twisting out of her captor’s grip in an effort to sit straighter. The grip tightened uncomfortably, she could feel her skin cracking, and the timid woman flitted to stand in front of her master. The delicate-looking woman was his guard, then. How unusual. 

The ancient only shook his head, and made eye contact with someone behind Carine.

Carine drew in a quick breath to calm herself. «I meant my human father,» she stressed between clenched teeth, glaring at both vampires standing in front of her. «He made me swear to rid the world of evil, in the name of God.»

Murmurs erupted across the room as the ancient’s jaw fell, whatever he’d been thinking before was now replaced by clear astonishment. Next to him, the woman was staring at Carine like she thought Carine was about to laugh and say, «Had you there, didn’t I?»

Even the grip around her shoulders slackened, and she caught a glimpse of her captor’s face as heleaned over her to look at her face. He’d been with the party she’d accosted, she remembered. She was glad she hadn’t tried to lie, then. 

Somehow he looked even more astonished now than he had when he first walked into her trap.

She felt awkwardness creep up on her. Being the sole recipient of so much attention was smothering.

The ancient composed himself. He put a hand on his guard’s arm, and she stepped out of his way, though she didn’t seem happy about it. He walked towards Carine. «You work with your father- no. No, I’m not going to guess. No,» that last word he said to himself, and he stepped back again, not noticing Carine’s flinch.

He held his palms together close to his mouth, and turned on his heel. It was such a smooth motion, it almost seemed like it was the floor turning beneath him. Carine was fascinated. «It’s times such as these that I love and despise my gift, in equal measure,» he breathed. He turned back to look at her. «I’ll have all the answers, and I’ll have all the answers, the riddle is solved.» He looked at her again and frowned, as if he had only now remembered something. «Oh Felix, do release her,» he said, with a tone like he was baffled his subject had not already done so.

The vice grip disappeared from her shoulders. Carine remained still as a rabbit facing down a fox, for the first time daring to hope she might actually survive this encounter.

«Aro…» the white-haired one of the remaining two vampires on the dais complained. 

«Oh shush, Caius, if nothing else you must be curious about her eyes» the ancient, Aro, said dismissively. A smile lit up his features. «I don’t suppose you want to tell me why your eyes have taken on such an unusual color?» he asked Carine, his eyes bright with curiosity, lighting up his whole face.

His excitement was genuine, she realized with vague surprise. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d met someone who contained even half as much enthusiasm as this man did. 

It was hard to be endeared to a man who was almost certainly going to order her execution as soon as his curiosity was satisfied, but all the same she couldn’t help but feel mildly charmed by this most peculiar, overenthusiastic vampire.

«I don’t feed on humans,» she said, nearly apologetically, part of her hoping he wouldn’t be too let down by her tame answer. «I drink from animals.»

He actually gasped at that. 

Next to him, the woman guard shook her head and gave her a pitying look, as if this confirmed Carine’s status as insane. Her sentiment seemed echoed by the other vampires around the room, who were all giving Carine varying looks of shock, pity, or disgust.

But not Aro.

He clapped his hands together, and laughed in delight. «How absolutely extraordinary!» He spun to look at his audience. «I’ve never seen anything like this!» He exclaimed to them, as if he fully expected them to be every bit as thrilled with Carine’s revelation as he was.

«You,» he said, spinning back to Carine, «you are truly something.» He laughed again, disbelieving.

He abruptly turned to one of the vampires behind Carine. Carine reflexively turned her head to follow his eyes, and was surprised to see a little boy. She’d never seen a demon quite so young before, and her stomach clenched at the sight of his vivid red eyes.

«I am _so_ glad you didn’t burn her, Alec. You and your sister are such a blessing to me,» Aro said, and his voice was filled with such fondness, it was almost hard to believe he was a demon.

But the unmistakable red of his eyes spoke for itself. Carine gave a minuscule shook of her head as she reminded herself what her father would have thought of this man, of this whole room.

Aro looked back at Carine. «Do you have any other surprises in store for us?» he asked brightly, fingers steepled together once again.

She opened her mouth to reply, only to snap it shut again.

He didn’t seem like he was about to kill her, but she had absolutely no idea what to make of the man. He didn’t react to anything the way she expected him to, or even the way the others in the room expected him to. Although, judging by Caius’ poorly suppressed vexation, as the man had not ceased his glaring, this was not unusual behavior from Aro.

Yet the fact remained that every vampire in the room seemed to want her execution done with so they could get on with their day, and the only one who didn’t was most charitably described as unpredictable, though she was beginning to wonder if mad wasn’t the better word.

Most likely, she would be executed as soon as Aro’s curiosity was satisfied. Any attempt to persuade him to let her live would likely backfire, the man was too unpredictable and she would not know where to start, either. This was reassuring in its own, strange manner. She was no stranger to having nothing to lose, and now that this was truer than ever, she felt a strange kind of freedom.

In spite of all this, however, she still had no idea what to say to him.

Carine smiled weakly. «I couldn’t say, seigneur. I never thought…» her eyes flickered to the floor beneath her as the rest of the sentence escaped her, to her tan, patched trousers, dirtier than they’d been before, she assumed from when her headless body must have fallen to the ground. She’d bet her tunic wasn’t in much better condition. She frowned as she contemplated how pristine and beautiful the other vampires in the room looked. Clad in expensive colors and fine fabrics, they looked like the devil’s own courtiers.

Briefly, she mused that if this was to be her execution, then she wished she would have come better dressed. Or at the very least that her executioners would have been considerate enough to dress down in solidarity.

«I can’t say whether I’ll be of any more entertainment to you,» she finally admitted quietly to Aro, breaking off her train of thought.

It was the truth, and she couldn’t think of what else to say. 

Aro stood completely still, his eyes wide as if her admission was the most captivating thing he’d heard all his life.

«Alright, alright, I can resist no longer,» he breathed, his eyes shining like stars. In less than a second he’d closed the distance between them and was kneeling before her so they were on the same level, his hand extended towards her. He looked expectant.

Carine froze as she frantically worked to understand his meaning.

Aro smiled. «No reason to be afraid, mademoiselle. And I suppose I haven’t introduced myself yet,» he said, though he appeared impatient. Still, he seemed to have arrived at some conclusion, because he nodded to himself, and with a gesture he beckoned for her to rise with him.

Standing was a relief. She felt less like a caged animal awaiting her butcher, more like herself. She raised her chin.

«I am Aro,» Aro said, amused by something yet again, «and along with my brothers, Caius and Marcus,» he gestured to the ancients behind him. Caius only rolled his eyes while the other, Marcus, didn’t appear to be paying attention at all, «I form the Volturi. Together we rule the world of vampires. You, my dear demoiselle, broke one of our laws when you attacked my subjects. And now, with just one touch, I will know every thought you’ve ever had.»

Aro’s tone was neither gloating nor menacing, quite the contrary, he sounded more like a kind tutor. In spite of this, chills ran down Carine’s spine as she realized the full implications of his power, and what hope she had had for her own survival faded.

Aro extended his hand again, his face glowing with anticipation. «What is your name?» he asked.

Looking up at him, Carine knew that this vampire was the summit of everything her father hated.

There wasn’t a trace of repentance in him, no regrets about the state of his soul. He counted a child among his vampiric ranks, and judging by the number of vampires in the room, he entertained weekly banquets of massacred humans. All of that, while delighting with unrestrained joy in life and all its wonders, even when wonders came in the form of damned creatures like Carine.

She had no real choice but to take his hand, yet she wondered if letting it happen would be her pomegranate seeds. If she would be falling in some way she hadn’t yet, giving up another piece of the piety she had tried so hard to hold on to.

And then there was the matter of how he would react to her thoughts. She held nothing in her heart but disgust at their kind, at everything he and his institution represented.

But there was no real choice.

«My name is Carine,» she told him quietly.  
  
«How fitting,» Aro whispered, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He looked almost breathless with excitement.

Then she placed her hand in his.

His eyes lowered as he pulled their joined hands towards himself, and his other hand came up to cover hers. He gave a slight pressure as he seemed to submerge himself in whatever knowledge her touch had to offer.

Several moments passed as he concentrated on the hand she had offered him. A small frown creased his brow.

Carine felt her long-dead heart clench. He was displeased by what he saw, then.

The temptation to pull her hand out of his was strong, but she knew that would only make it worse.

Finally, Aro exhaled, though his eyes remained lowered. All the giddiness from earlier had deflated. «So much grief in such a short life,» he said quietly, more to himself than to her or anybody else in the room. His fingers stroked gently across the back of her hand, before squeezing it again. His eyes snapped up to meet hers. There was a profound sadness in them. «My dear, you fight for the wrong reason. Starving yourself, destroying your own kind, this flirtation with death… you are filled with despair.» He’d slipped into tu, and not out of disrespect.

This was the last thing she’d expected to hear.

She had expected a binary scale, either he’d be disappointed that the she was not as entertaining as he’d hoped, or he’d cheer in delight as her life’s endeavors became a spectacle for him to watch. 

She hadn’t expected compassion.

And yet, as his sorrowful red eyes bored into hers, the compassion he felt for her was undeniable.

A flash of memory came to her unbidden, of another hand holding hers, one far warmer and softer than Aro’s, but no matter how hard she had looked she hadn’t seen a trace of compassion in those blue eyes…

Aro released her hand, and she let it drop to her side.

The other ancient, Marcus, rose and was at Aro’s side in an instant. He lightly touched Aro’s hand, and Aro nodded. «Thank you, Marcus,» he muttered.

Caius’ eyes had narrowed. «Aro…» he said, and there was a warning note to his voice.

«I already have Marcus’ vote, brother,» Aro said, almost apologetically.

Carine frowned. Vote for what?

Caius barked out an incredulous laughter. «You can’t be serious. She attacked our guard!»

«She didn’t know,» Aro said dismissively. «This young woman was abandoned by her creator and never told of our laws, yet she has obeyed them as well as any other vampire. If anything, this extraordinary young lady has been serving us already, we would only be making it official. She hunts those of our kind who are careless enough to be caught, prevents the worst disasters, she even kills infected humans who would have become bothersome newborns…» Aro listed his reasons quickly, as if they were so evident that having to say them out loud at all was a bother, but if the look on Caius’ face was anything to go by, he remained unconvinced. 

«We’ve never had anybody like her,» Aro concluded happily.

Carine wondered what in the world their laws were, and how devoting herself to killing other vampires could possibly entail following them. Was the law that the unholy must engage in violence and murder? If so, she supposed Aro was technically correct, but she didn’t like it. She hadn’t done what she did for him, or to pay heed to some wicked tradition of slaughter for the sake of slaughter.

And it was a chilling thought that all her efforts to be better than her demonic nature, to stand as proud as a damned woman could among the ranks of a God who no longer loved her, had been in line with a demon ruler’s laws. Winning the approval of a vampire ruler felt like a demented joke.

Her father, she knew, would have been furious by this development.

And when Aro spoke of _serving them_ …

Carine had taken a step backward before even realizing it, shaking her head in disagreement. She would die before she joined a court of demons.

Aro gave her what was probably meant to be a reassuring nod, but she didn’t feel reassured at all. He turned back to Caius as she watched. «Besides, I think she may have a gift. Vampires are quick to trust her…» something else seemed to occur to him, and he looked very contemplative as he gazed at her, at something else behind her, and back at Carine again. Something shone in his eyes, and he grinned at Carine as if the two shared in a private joke.

Carine had no idea what he meant by gift. He seemed to be perfectly charismatic himself, more so than her. Yet there was something about the way he said gift, like it was something tangible. 

She settled on hoping that whatever it was, she didn’t have it. If she were a nobody, Aro might send her on her way and she could continue as she always had, but if she was of a particular use to him…

«She’ll be useful to us,» he implored Caius again.

Caius harrumphed. «Your mind is set already, yet you make such an effort to win my approval. You embarrass us both.»

«Because I want her to be welcomed by us all!» Aro exclaimed. «Brother, there’s no joy in joining a family where only two thirds welcome her.» He seemed to find the very notion devastating.

He then clapped his hands together again, and a pleased smile came over his face. Whatever he’d thought of, he appeared to believe it would do the trick. «Would it make a difference, dear brother,» he began, gliding slowly towards Caius, «if I told you that this girl took care of the Transylvanians for us?»

That had Caius’ attention, whoever the Transylvanians were. He leaned forwards in his chair and gave Carine an incredulous look. A movement of whispers erupted through the room as well, and Aro’s little guardwoman narrowed her eyes at Carine. Carine frowned. She never would have guessed there were vampires who brought their nationalities into their next life. Carine certainly hadn’t. She was a demon and a killer, not English.

She wondered who the Transylvanians had been. In her mind she flicked rapidly through her portfolio of victims, but none of the faces that flickered before her mind’s eye seemed a more probable candidate the next.

Aro was pleased with the reaction his words had received from Caius. Carine’s confusion seemed to be part of the spectacle, as he turned his attention back on her.

«The Transylvanians,» he said, his voice filled with schadenfreude as he narrated to Carine and the room at large, «Vladimir and Stefan, one had white curls and the other was dark. Always spoke in unison, I believe in an attempt to seem otherworldly. About yea high,» Aro gestured a bit below his waist with the smirk of a taller man, «they tried to impress you with exaggerated old tales.»

That did bring back memories.

Although, remembering how the droll duo had not very subtly been trying to seduce her with tales of human sacrifice, she rather thought Aro was being too generous in his description of them.

She nodded. «I killed them, yes.» 

That was her line.

Aro clapped in delight, and he turned triumphantly back to Caius, who was shaking his head. He seemed amused, Carine noted in surprise. Only barely, but that was surely amusement hidden away in the lines of his face as he regaled Aro and herself.

«She killed my greatest source of entertainment,» Caius said, but the edge in his voice from before had dulled.

Aro huffed. «They were entertaining, but their slander was a menace all the same. They poisoned covens against us. It was good riddance. Besides,» he added, inclining his head towards Marcus, who appeared completely disinterested, «Marcus believes she’ll be loyal.»

Marcus grunted his assent.

Caius looked to Marcus, and shook his head slightly. He exhaled slowly. «Fine,» he said. «Fine, since you’ll have her anyway. But I will not be forgiving of mistakes,» he added, holding up a warning finger.

«She won’t make any, brother,» Aro reassured him.

Caius snorted and shook his head again, but said no more.

Aro finally turned his attention back to Carine. He was beyond pleased with himself, so excited that without an audience she felt certain he would have been bouncing on his feet. «I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to have my guard assaulted. Carine, you will be the finest addition we’ve had for centuries.»

Carine briefly wondered just how many of the vampires in the room he’d offended saying that.

She finally found her voice. «Monseigneur, I’m grateful…» she trailed off again.

Did she have a choice?

The other option would be death. Caius had not forgiven her attack on the guard, and if she refused Aro’s offer she had no illusions about walking out of the castle in one piece. Caius would have his way, and she would burn.

But she had given her word to her father, and she would not sooner let him down than she would shirk her duty. This, she told herself, was only another trial, one final ring of fire after all her tribulations.

The inevitable brutality her execution would entail was daunting, especially so soon after learning how decapitation felt, and yet…

Looking into Aro’s expectant face and warm eyes, she felt a reluctance to be the one to let him down, yet she would in a strange way be glad to die like this, by her own choosing and with more dignity than if she had lost a fight against some arbitrary scoundrel. She’d never expected to live long, and this was as good a death as she was going to get.

It would be nice to no longer have to fight the temptation of human blood.

And while Aro had only just met her and she had given up on understanding his motives, she felt a trace of happiness that there was someone who’d be upset to see her gone.

«I’m going to have to decline,» Carine said, her voice steady.

«But you must join us!» Aro exclaimed, his eyes wide. In an instant, he stood before her again. «My dear, you can’t walk alone in this world. It’s far too lonely,» he implored, and after a moment’s thought, he held his hand out for her to take again.

Carine shook her head. He would only try to argue against her reasons, and she had made up her mind. She would rather be done with this sooner, not drawn out and agonized over.

Aro withdrew his hand, a frown clouding his brow and his lips pursed in consternation. Like she was a great puzzle presented before him, and he was contemplating where to begin solving it. «You don’t even know the laws I would have you uphold,» he finally said.

«That’s not why-» Carine began, but Aro shook his head.

«We protect humans,» he said curtly, cutting her off.

Carine blinked. «What?»

She looked again at his eyes, they were hazy, but as red as any other vampire she’d known, and so were the others in the room. He fed on humans, there was no doubt about that. Her mind spun as she tried to understand why he would then say such a thing. Was he attempting to trick her?

«Yes, we feed from them, of course. You should as well. But the world is not so black and white that we can’t guard the institution while still taking our payment in the individuals.»

«I don’t understand…» Carine whispered.

«Vampires live in the shadows, unknown to humans, stealing their victims away in the night when they need to feed. Why do you think that is?» Aro asked. «You’ve wondered this often.»

Carine frowned, thinking back to the painstaking efforts she’d seen vampires go through to stay hidden, and her many hours spent trying to understand why they would behave in this way.

Her eyes widened in the next instant, when she realized what Aro was implying.

He grinned in response, not needing to touch her to see that she had caught on. «We only have the one law. All vampires must keep the secret of our existence from humans. Disobedience is punishable by death, and we do not give second chances.»

Carine could see her own eyes reflected in Aro’s, they were as wide with astonishment. She felt something akin to faint as she tried to imagine the sheer power Aro must possess to be able to uphold such an impossible law.

She most certainly felt faint when another thing dawned on her.

All this time, her actions had been in perfect accordance with the will of the king of demons.

She’d hunted those who strayed too close to civilization, who left trails she could follow, and while she had revealed herself in Carcassonne, she had prevented a far worse indiscretion. All of this, she had done of her own accord.

She was beginning to see why the man considered her a recruit already.

She wondered how her father would have responded to learning that the hordes of evil are scared into cowering like rats not by the Church or even God himself, but by other demons. Certainly not well.

Carine herself would have liked some time and prayer to digest.

Aro continued, heedless of her reeling. «From that law we derive other rules, such as the interdiction against abandoning new creations. I assure you, if your creator still walks this earth, he will not continue to do so for much longer.»

Somehow, Carine didn’t doubt that. If Aro could see her very soul, his demonic powers were likely not limited to that. And his guard likely possessed such powers as well. One lone vampire would not be a match against that.

«Aro, if what you say is true and you are what stands in the way of demons slaughtering freely, then words cannot express my admiration and gratitude towards you,» she told him. Aro’s face lit up hopefully. «But that’s not to say I can join you,» she continued, extinguishing that light.

Aro’s eyes flashed in anger, and he looked away from her. She had no need of his power to see that he was thinking very hard, trying to devise some way to persuade her.

After a moment’s contemplation, he turned to her with renewed conviction. «Carine,» he said, and his tone was at once authoritative and imploring, «you simply must join us. For your own sake and to uphold our joint mission. Don’t deny yourself this chance out of obligation to a dead man who understood nothing of what he was asking, of what you had become.» Carine took another step back, and avoided his gaze. Aro exhaled in frustration, searching for words. «I don’t believe in your God, but why would He want you to be wretched? To be lonely and unhappy? Don’t mistake misery for asceticism.» He spoke quickly and fiercely, but this subject was foreign territory to him, that much was clear. She was surprised he had ventured there at all. 

«Not that I care much for asceticism either,» he added, and he couldn’t quite keep his scorn at the very thought from his voice.

His words, that last part excepted, struck a cord.

She was a servant of God. This was as true, if not more so, than the truth that she was a demon. She had no other purpose than to purge as many demons as she could, preserving humanity to the best of her ability along the way. If there was a different way of doing His bidding, one thatwould entail working with other demons so that she could be stronger, better, safer…

Who would she be serving if she refused Aro’s offer, God or herself?

As a Volturi, she would have mentors. She would be forged into a far greater warrior than she could have hoped to become on her own, and she would in turn save for more humans. She would have protection, and could continue doing God’s work for many, many years to come.

As for working with other demons… she was a demon herself. It would be a different matter if she were human, but as a demon one could easily argue that refusing to work with other demons who shared her goal would be petty hypocrisy. 

She did not know Aro’s motives for doing what he did. She doubted it was pure altruism. All the same, his mission did match hers.

She was truly considering this, then. She swallowed dryly, for once welcoming the brief distraction of her ever-present thirst.

Her father would never have understood, never have approved. He would only have seen a league of demons, and she supposed he would have been right. But he had told her to do God’s work, whatever that might entail, and he had made it clear that she was not to fear jeopardizing her own soul, for she had none.

Was becoming Aro’s servant not then justifiable, before her father, before God? To fulfill her sacred mission?

Aro, perhaps sensing that success was imminent, pressed on. «You can serve the Volturi and your God at the same time, and you will be a better servant to both for it. Not only that, but I will give you access to my library, to all the arts and treasures I’ve collected over the millennia. You will have a home. Can’t you see, Carine, that this is for the best?»

Carine took a shuddering breath, and examined Aro’s eyes for any giveaway, for any wicked intentions to reveal themselves, Lucifer revealing that this had all been a mirage, orchestrated to make her stray from her path.

She saw nothing, only his imploring desire to have her on his side.

And he’d never asked that she turn her back on the Lord…

She offered her hand again, and looked away as he grasped it between both of his own. She heard him inhale sharply at her thoughts, and felt his fingers squeeze hers for a moment.

It was a few seconds before he spoke again.

«You are free to leave, if that is truly your desire.» She looked up at him in shock. «But, Carine, you would be as miserable then as you have been before, and sooner rather than later you will be killed. It’ll be an inglorious end to a wretched life. A waste.» His hold on her hand had become quite firm, and he fixed her with a strict look that brokered no argument. «I won’t deny that you would be an asset to us, but we would be more of an asset to you. If you’ll let us.»

Several full minutes passed as Carine stood there unbreathing and motionless, trapped in Aro’s gaze and by his words, as still as only a vampire can be.

The corners of Aro’s mouth drew upwards as he watched her arrive at her conclusion.

«If you swear that you’ll never jeopardize my diet…» Carine began shakily. Her father’s face flickered before her mind’s eyes again, and she refocused on Aro. He nodded his assent, his smile blossoming from the corners of his mouth to his eyes, lighting up his face, as he waited to hear the words.

«Then yes,» Carine said. «I’ll join you.»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You probably realized, but the Transylvanians are the Romanians. The Romanians would not have been the Romanians in the late 17th century, but to call them Dacians would have been a bit outdated, even for someone as old as Aro. I’m really not the best with Eastern European or Ottoman history, but at the time this story takes place Transylvania had been a semi-independent principality for over a century, and about a third of the population was of Romanian ethnicity. And Stefan and Vladimir have always been associated with that particular area.
> 
> As for whether Stefan and Vladimir would be what we consider Romanian today (I’m on a roll) from the Twilight wiki they, along with several other covens, formed the a supercoven in Dacia, present day Romania. Does the supercoven being founded in Dacia mean that Stefan and/or Vladimir are Romanian? I think the odds of that are extremely slim, I think vampires name covens after the location they’re associated with, or presently habituate. Just look at the Denali sisters, they’re from Russia but the coven is named for their current Alaskan dwelling.
> 
> Another thing I hope others will enjoy as much as I do - Carina roughly means «cute one», feminine form, in Italian. And the Italians would turn Carine into Carina. So enjoy the fact that in not just this fic, but in «Life and Death» canon as well, Carine in Volterra must have had the worst time trying to be taken seriously because her name is Cutie.


End file.
